This week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene put forth
a string of amendments to the must-pass Food and Drug Administration appropriations bill, advocating for a sweeping ban on federal funding for gender-affirming care and the hospitals that provide it. The primary
Health and Human Services appropriations bill has moved forward, incorporating a clause aimed at prohibiting all federal funds for gender-affirming care. Similarly, the defense appropriations bill that fuels the US military has already secured full house approval, complete
with a blanket ban on all fundingfor such care. This could wreak havoc on the lives of trans service members, or those with trans family members, should it ultimately be enacted into law.
Further funding bills for
children's hospitals,
veterans' affairs, and other key areas are following suit, each laden with comparable amendments. Despite the mounting potential fallout, this pivotal issue seems to be largely overlooked by major media outlets, a misstep given the potential for this issue to gridlock substantial portions of the government.
The push is to make gender affirming care bans into the new “Hyde Amendment,” an amendment commonly added to funding bills that bans federal spending on abortion. These amendments would do similarly, banning all federal spending on gender affirming care. These amendments could target everything from Affordable Care Act insurance plans, which fall under the regulation of Health and Human Services, to transgender people in the military, who must get their care through the military. The military would then be banned from providing such care - a defacto trans ban for servicemembers. Collectively, these amendments would seek to enact national anti-trans bans that would reach even people in deep blue states who have
fled anti-trans policies in red states.